Assembly Required Salad

When you want to impress your guests but don’t have much time, you open your refrigerator, grab all the vegetables you find there that could be consumed uncooked, and arrange them on a pretty platter to make an arresting picture. You place the dressing on the table right next to it, and after the appropriate “Ooohs!” and “Aaahs!”, dress and mix a very healthy salad right in front of your company. The basic rule of thumb is a contrast of colors and textures.

I believe that young beets don’t need to be peeled, as the tender skin is chock-full of vitamins. They do need to be scrubbed well under running water. Even though they could be incorporated into this salad completely raw, sometimes people with a sensitive digestion system might react to this much roughage, so I just pierce them a few times, wrap them in a paper towel, and microwave them for a couple of minutes, not to cook, but to soften.

What else do I have at hand? Cabbage, carrots, green bell pepper, and red onion. I put them next to each other, added some dill, and decided that the whole “nature morte” needed a border, or a frame, if you will. I added a Red Delicious apple, and was ready to start. I shredded cabbage, grated carrot and beets, and sliced the onion, pepper, and apple paper thin. Then I arranged the three shredded and grated veggies in piles, separated by julienned (cut into thin strips) pepper, and piled sliced onion into the center. Apple slices were tucked all around, along the rim of the platter, creating a frame. I tore dill sprigs into smaller pieces and randomly scattered them around. And just because my whimsical nature demanded it, I fanned three apple slices over the cabbage pile and sprinkled some black sesame seeds on them.

A very basic dressing included olive oil, lemon juice, cinnamon, xylitol, salt, and fresh ground black pepper. I poured into a nice cruet, to be served together with the veggies.

I first saw this salad in Palanga, a Lithuanian sea-side resort where slender pines walk into the silvery-gray Baltic sea. They served it with different kinds of smoked fish, interspersed with vegetables. I remembered it as something as beautiful and coldly mysterious as the sea and the pine trees, as this song and dance dedicated to them.

What an awe-inspiring work of art! I hope you are getting the feeling of flowing with nature and using the gifts of nature found in your refrigerator on a moment’s notice to create a work of art of your own.

And remember, you can use anything you have at hand, as long as you make it look beautiful!

Dear Sumith, I can just imagine what an artist like you would be able to create, but I am not an artist like you! It’s a quick and healthy salad, and my guests were duly impressed, and I thank you so much for your comment!

I can totally relate to that! I remember the years when I was eating out of the cooler in the car while driving from one campus to another, and my diet consisted almost entirely of celery/carrot sticks and cheese cubes. Paradoxically, it kept me in good health with lots of energy. Lest you think I was very young, I was in my 40’s then.